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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'The Canadian Magazine Dispute and an Exemption for Whaling',
	'<{subtitle}>' => 'Written in <span title="Globalization">POLS 1503</span> of <a href="http://www.uopeople.edu/">University of the People</a>, finalised on 2016-10-12',
	'<{copyright year}>' => '2016',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<p>
	Many efforts are often made in the name of protecting culture, but often times, there&apos;s an ulterior motive.
	Even when efforts made to protect a culture are truly motivated by desires to preserve a way of life, sometimes, the implications on global culture and fairness aren&apos;t considered as fully as they should be.
	Take the Canadian magazine dispute and Norway and Japan&apos;s efforts to get an exception to a global ban on whaling for example.
	In the case of the former, Canada tried to give Canadian magazine sales a boost by raising tariffs on foreign magazines.
	This was done in the name of protecting Canadian magazine culture, but in truth, Canadian magazine culture is largely international.
	Favoring domestic magazines would have disrupted that.
	In the latter, Norway and Japan have tried to receive culture-based exemptions to a global ban, effectively setting an unfair double standard.
	Anyone from these countries would be allowed to hunt whales again, but the ban would still apply to anyone outside their borders.
</p>
<h2>The Canadian Magazine Dispute</h2>
<p>
	In 1995, Canada added new laws to try to distinguish between domestic and foreign magazines, this time taking into account the presence of so-called &quot;split-run&quot; magazines.
	These split-run magazines were foreign in origin, but were sent to Canada in digital form to be printed on Canadian soil.
	This had allowed these magazines to bypass tariffs and restrictions on foreign magazines, as laws had previously only taken into account the location in which the magazines had been printed.
	Supposedly, discrimination against magazines based on their origins was intended to protect Canadian culture.
	Magazine producers in the United States disputed these new laws through the World Trade Organization, and got them overturned.
	(The LEVIN institute, n.d.)
</p>
<p>
	I highly doubt that the Canadian magazine dispute was motivated much, if at all, by desires to &quot;protect&quot; Canadian culture.
	Only eleven percent of magazine sales in Canada were from domestic magazine publishers.
	In other words, foreign magazines were very much a part of Canadian culture, so any attempt to discourage or ban the sales of foreign magazines was the real threat to Canadian culture, not the foreign magazines themselves.
</p>
<p>
	More likely, lobbyists from domestic magazine publishers used culture as an excuse, trying to make their concerns seem more legitimate, and pressured the Canadian government into trying to make foreign publications less viable.
	However, their real concerns were likely only spurred by greed, trying to improve their own bottom lines without having to actually try to compete with foreign publishers by improving their own content.
	The Canadian government claimed that Canadian magazines could help instill a sense of themselves in the Canadian people.
	However, if this was true and if Canadians actually wanted this instilled within themselves, there never would have been a need to impose any restrictions or tariffs on foreign publications.
	Domestic Canadian magazine sales would already be up.
</p>
<p>
	This dispute, had it not been resolved, could have had a huge impact on Canadian culture.
	However, instead of preserving their culture, it would have disrupted it.
	Canadian culture includes the consumption of a high volume of foreign media.
	Any attempt to limit the choices available to Canadian consumers is an attack on their culture.
	Culture doesn&apos;t just come from where you live.
	Canadian culture is largely one of internationality.
	Canadians do not stick to consumption of media only from within their borders, and they&apos;re a great example of how culture can be shaped by globalization.
</p>
<p>
	Limiting choices is also an attack on the freedom of the Canadian citizens.
	People should be free to choose which products to buy.
	Products that sell well will continue to be sold, while products with low sales will be deemed unprofitable and will be phased out.
	If Canadians prefer to read foreign magazines, that should be their choice to make.
	At the point that you&apos;re toying with prices to manipulate people&apos;s purchasing decisions, you can&apos;t be claiming to be trying to help those people.
	You&apos;re trying to make their decisions for them, imposing your own ideals on your citizens.
</p>
<p>
	The fairness of levying extra taxes on foreign publications depends on who you ask about the topic.
	Really, it&apos;s a matter of who your government truly works for.
	I think that most of us would agree that our governments should work for the citizens.
	In that case, an elevated tax on foreign goods of any kind is unacceptable.
	It stifles the freedom of choice that we would otherwise enjoy.
	However, there&apos;s another side to the argument as well.
	While citizens would prefer a government that works for the people, corporations would prefer that governments be puppets to big business instead.
	If the government works for the corporations, it makes perfect sense that they would try to stifle freedom and attempt to get citizens to purchase domestic products.
	After all, that&apos;s just good business.
	&quot;Good business&quot; isn&apos;t always good for the consumer though, and these added tariffs help create something closer to a monopoly.
	It&apos;s anti-competitive for domestic magazine publishers to try to get these restrictions and tariffs imposed, and only serves to prevent domestic magazine publishers from actually needing to make their content more appealing to the Canadian masses.
</p>
<p>
	If I were the Canadian government, I wouldn&apos;t be trying to distinguish between split-run and domestic magazines.
	Regardless of where you draw the line, it avoids the real issue.
	Instead, I&apos;d encourage domestic magazine publishers to examine their more-popular competition.
	What is the competition doing right? Why do customers prefer those other magazines? In what way should the domestic magazines change to attract their target audience better? For the sake of argument though, drawing such a line would not be an easy task.
	What factors should be taken into account? If the source of the articles is to be used, consider the case of articles taken from the Web.
	Let&apos;s say that an article is published on the Web by a foreign entity under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.
	A domestic magazine would be legally permitted to include this article in their own printed publication.
	Does this inclusion of a foreign article make the magazine issue a split-run issue? For that matter, as we move into the digital age, more people are going to be reading digital magazines and Web pages.
	How does a government impose added taxes on foreign Internet-based publications? The only way to distinguish between a foreign magazine and a domestic magazine is to label everything that has any components of production outside the country as foreign (or a split run, if it also has components of production within the country).
	After all, if the goal is to promote Canadian work, all-Canadian magazines would be the most favorable.
	In a global economy though, such labels are counterproductive.
</p>
<h2>An Exception for Whaling</h2>
<p>
	The United Nations has imposed a ban on all hunting of whales.
	However, in 2000, Norway and Japan sought exceptions to that ban for their respective countries, citing whaling as a cultural practice within these nations that was integral to their traditions.
	As the species of whale that these countries wanted to hunt wasn&apos;t considered endangered, Norway and Japan claimed that the ban must not be in place for environmental reasons.
	They seem to deny the fact that species endangerment isn&apos;t the only environmental issue present in the world.
	(The LEVIN institute, n.d.)
</p>
<p>
	I strongly disagree with Norway and Japan&apos;s position that these two countries should be exempt from the international ban on whaling.
	A whale killed by a Norwegian or Japanese citizen makes no more or less impact than a whale killed elsewhere.
	It&apos;s not right to impose different restrictions on people based on their national citizenship.
	Endangered or not, there must be a reason for the prohibition of the hunting of whales.
	It might be possible to impose restrictions on how and when whales may be hunted, allowing anyone in the world to hunt whales globally provided that they adhere to these tight guidelines.
	This would be a much more fair way for Japan and Norway to reach their goals.
	Personally, I agree with a total ban on whaling, but that&apos;s not the biggest problem with exception-granting.
	The main problem is the creation of a double standard in which some people can hunt whales and others cannot.
</p>
<p>
	This ban isn&apos;t a violation of these nations&apos; sovereignty.
	Norway was ignoring this ban, which means that this ban can in fact be ignored by countries that prefer to make their own laws.
	Japan and Norway need to decide whether it&apos;s more important to continue their whaling traditions or remain integrated with the international economy.
	These two countries could face embargoes if they continue whaling, and its fully within the rights of other countries to refuse to trade with countries that are killing whales.
	You can&apos;t play both sides.
	You can either enjoy the benefits of being integrated with the rest of the world, such as somewhat consistent laws across nations and the freedom to trade across borders, or you can enjoy the benefits of not integrating with the rest of the world, such as keeping separate laws within your country that at times contradict the global laws.
</p>
<p>
	The concept of a &quot;cultural exception&quot; isn&apos;t really valid in my opinion for a couple of reasons.
	First, it gives some people rights that others are denied.
	That&apos;s not just or fair.
	If whaling is problematic, it&apos;s problematic no matter who does it.
	If Norway and Japan want the hunting of whales to be acceptable, they should instead be fighting to lift the ban in its entirety.
	Second, citing &quot;culture&quot; in such an disagreement isn&apos;t really a valid argument.
	&quot;Tradition&quot; is not a valid reason to continue doing something that&apos;s wrong.
	If whaling is wrong, tradition and culture don&apos;t make it fine for some people while it continues to be wrong for everyone else.
	A panel or committee of some sort at the World Trade Organization or the United Nations might be of use in deciding which bans should remain intact, which should be lifted, and which should have exceptions based on execution, but no bans should have exceptions for only citizens of certain countries.
	This panel could help decide under what circumstances, if any, someone might be allowed to preform a banned activity such as hunting whales.
	If such a panel or committee were formed, it should probably be composed of scientists, environmentalists, and representatives from any country that wishes to participate in such decisions.
</p>
<p>
	A cultural activity is simply an activity that people continue to participate in merely because tradition has dictated that it is to happen.
	In other words, there&apos;s usually no solid ground on which a cultural activity can be defended.
	When traditions are harmless, cultural activities can be fun or instill a sense of community in some people.
	However, when cultural activities are harmful, they shouldn&apos;t be continued or condoned just because they are tradition.
	Instead, they need to be discontinued.
	Citing tradition as a reason for an exception is as nonsensical as citing &quot;Asian values&quot; as a reason that it&apos;s okay to deny Asians their inalienable human rights.
	We are all human and the place that you live or were born does not factor into the question of wrong or right or what rights and freedoms you should be granted.
</p>
<p>
	If the Norwegians and Japanese want to argue that whaling is an important cornerstone to their economy or the economy of certain sections of their populace, they may have a point.
	This isn&apos;t grounds for a full exception to be granted to these countries though.
	It might be reasonable to grant an exception for existing whalers, but prohibit any new people from taking up that profession.
	That way, those that currently depend on whaling to make a living are not forced to try to find a new way to support themselves.
	However, new people, including the children of whalers, do not come to depend on whaling themselves.
	In other words, whaling would be phased out in a generation.
</p>
<p>
	World opinion should very much be taken into account when dealing with exception-seekers.
	If the world views the activity as harmful, why should an exception be granted? However, if the world isn&apos;t opposed to the activity, then why should it be banned in the first place? Global consensus should be considered, and such bans should either be left intact and without exceptions, given exceptions not based on national citizenship, or be lifted.
	If someone is seeking to overturn such bans, they should bring enough evidence to the table that these activities aren&apos;t harmful, or at least not harmful when carried out in certain ways, to get their points across.
</p>
<h2>Conclusions</h2>
<p>
	Culture can be very important to some people, and I&apos;m certainly not saying that it shouldn&apos;t be protected.
	However, the execution of this protection is very important.
</p>
<p>
	In the case of the Canadian magazine dispute, Canada&apos;s government tried to impose domestic magazine culture on its citizens by making foreign magazines more expensive to produce and sell.
	This shouldn&apos;t be considered a preservation of Canada&apos;s magazine culture for a couple of reasons.
	First, Canada&apos;s magazine culture includes both foreign and domestic magazines, so trying to disrupt the sales of foreign magazines amounts to an attack on Canadian culture, not an effort to preserve it.
	Second, culture should be chosen, not imposed.
	If someone doesn&apos;t care about domestic magazines, domestic magazines shouldn&apos;t be shoved at them anyway.
	Imposing Canadian domestic magazine culture at the expense of Canadian international magazine culture wasn&apos;t a good move by the Canadian government.
</p>
<p>
	In the case of the seeking of a whaling exemption, Norway and Japan tried to use culture as an excuse to be granted extra privileges.
	Culture should be available to everyone and should not be an excuse for obtaining extra privileges or rights.
	Someone outside of Japan and Norway should have the same opportunities as someone within these countries.
	A double standard is unacceptable.
	If Japan and Norway think that the way in which they hunt whales isn&apos;t harmful, perhaps a better use of their efforts would be to try to get an exception for those hunting methods and practices, not an exception solely for citizens of those countries.
</p>
<div class="APA_references">
	<h2>References:</h2>
	<p>
		The LEVIN institute. (n.d.). Microsoft Word - cultall2011 - glob101cultureandglob.pdf. Retrieved from <a href="http://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/126118/mod_book/chapter/94467/glob101cultureandglob.pdf"><code>http://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/126118/mod_book/chapter/94467/glob101cultureandglob.pdf</code></a>
	</p>
</div>
END
);
